INDIA NEEDS to focus on ease of travel as the world has started to notice the country due to its rise in recent years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday.
Addressing a gathering at a ceremony to inaugurate Goa’s second airport, which has been named after late Manohar Parrikar, the former chief minister of Goa and former defence minister, the Prime Minister said, “As India grows, the world will look at India and there is a need to provide ease of travel and this new airport will help further this cause.”
The “ease of travel” remark comes at a time when India has got the presidency of G20 countries and will host more than 100 meetings in over 50 cities across the country next year.
Accusing the previous governments of adopting a “vote-bank approach” instead of creating public amenities, the Prime Minister said his government has introduced several measures to ensure ease of flying. “We have brought reforms like relaxing visa rules, introduction of visa on arrival, new infrastructure to focus on connectivity, including last-mile links through launch of several new trains like Tejas, Vande Bharat and Vistadome coaches,” he said.
He said these measures have shown results and the number of domestic travellers in India has increased five times since 2015 — from 140 million to 700 million in 2021.
The Prime Minister also said that the second airport in Goa should have come earlier but the past governments did not look at the requirement of the people, when deciding on infrastructure projects.
The state-of-the-art airport in Mopa will significantly improve connectivity as well as boost tourism in Goa. https://t.co/rY9M4OY6Z5
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) December 11, 2022
“The airport was conceived by Atalji (NDA government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee) but the project was put on back burner after his government lost. The project was revived only after 2014,” said Modi, who laid the foundation stone for the airport in November 2016.
The airport – at Mopa, 35 km from Panaji – has been developed at a cost of around Rs 2,870 crore by the GMR Group, which also operates airports in Delhi, Hyderabad and Nagpur.
Tourism push
This new airport will give a push to tourism in Goa since the existing airport remains shut for five hours —four hours in the morning and one hour in the afternoon — on the week days. The new terminal is also expected to help ease fares on flights to Goa on the back of new flight additions.
It will, in the first phase, cater to around 4.4 million passengers per annum (MPPA) on a single runway and can go up to 33 MPPA with two runways.
The airport will see commercial operations begin on January 5, 2023. International flights will begin by March, said officials.
Panaji has now become the first capital city in the country to have two operational airports. Plans are in progress to build second airports to feed cities like Delhi and Mumbai. While Delhi will get a second airport in Jewar, Mumbai will get its second airport in Navi Mumbai.
Airlines such as IndiGo and GoFirst have already announced flights to and from the new airport. More flights would help bring down air fares to Goa. While IndiGo has announced launch of 162 flights a week, GoFirst has announced plans to launch 42 flights a week from the new airport starting next month.
The new airport is located in the Northern part of Goa. About 70% of tourists, who fly to the state, visit North Goa, which also has 73% of the state’s total hotel inventory, executives said.
